06/16/2012 – Meredith Dittmar “TRANSMUTATION”

Toy Art Gallery is proud to present “TRANSMUTATION” a two-week engagement featuring the work of Portland, Oregon artist Meredith Dittmar. The work is characterized by exquisite human-animal-plant-energy hybrids that contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union between consciousness, biology, and technology.

“TRANSMUTATION” sees a resurgence of Meredith’s “My Guys”, fanciful, thoughtful characters in beautiful colors and shapes, each 100% handmade from polymer clay. Also showcased are her abstractly and geometrically detailed clay reliefs, each presented in a wall-mountable lightbox . Every work is one-of-a-kind and unique, and priced to satisfy all budgets.

Says Meredith:
I first touched polymer clay 18 years ago, and very rapidly after, I began
to create characters. A constant stream of unique faces numbering in the
thousands have emerged from my fingertips. They gave my busy hands a job and
brought me many varied commercial opportunities, but more importantly,
guided me towards art and the realization that I am an artist for the long
haul. Over the years the characters varied quite a bit in subject, size,
and realism; and more recently, have left my work almost entirely.
Throughout this transition I have frequently reflected on what this natural
departure of the character might signify in the context of my life and work.
Why get rid of them? They were, after all, what I built my career on. I
kept hearing how much people really connected to the expressions, in
particular the eyes. But I began to feel like, just maybe, they mistakenly
thought they loved the character and its eyes, but what they really loved
was what was coming through its eyes. I’ve been driven to find out just
what is coming through the eyes that people connect with so greatly, and
that exploration had been the basis of my artwork ever since. Using the
strongest character at my disposal (myself) I began to look deeper and
deeper. Shockingly- the attachment to the concept of MY character seemed to
be the very thing getting in the way. So it began, somewhat against my
choice, the systematic stripping away of the character. observing it,
splitting it and looking behind it, until there was no thing and no one
left. Working on this show allowed me to revisit character work as the
plain ole’ fun and free activity it is, and has always been for me. While
at the same time, I got to continue to dig under the story of the
transmutation of my own “character”. The result is a merger of the two
practices, arriving at a recognition of the underlying truth of both as the
same.

Please join us for the opening on Saturday, June 16th from 7-10 PM at Toy Art Gallery’s new showroom located at 7571 Melrose Ave. Hollywood CA 90046. “TRANSMUTATION” runs through June 30th.